Football benches are increasingly made in Italy. After the record contract for Marcello Lippi at the helm of Guangzhou Evergrande in China (yesterday came the first knockout after 8 games), Carlo Ancelotti's PSG which by raiding Italy is preparing to become one of the protagonists of the next Champions League, and the already successful emigrants Roberto Di Matteo (European champion with Chelsea), Luciano Spalletti (Zenit St. Petersburg, Russia) and Roberto Mancini (Premier League with Manchester City), here we are Fabio Capello is officially the new technical commissioner of Russia.
The former coach of Milan, Roma and Juve will sit on the bench – for which Mancini and Spalletti, as well as Pep Guardiola were initially in the running – of the country that will host the 2018 World Cup up to the Brazilian event in 2014, but according to the agreements could also be extended to the home edition four years later. Capello succeeds Dick Advocaat, who resigned after a European Championship that started very well but ended with the great disappointment of elimination in the first round to Greece.
The 66-year-old coach from Friuli will therefore have as his first task to lead Russia in the qualifiers of the 2014 World Cup scheduled in Brazil "If everything ends in the best possible way, as announced by the Russian Federation, I will be happy and proud - Capello tells Ansa -. If, as I believe, everything goes well for the definition of the contract, it will be a splendid adventure, Russia is a great nation“. As already mentioned, the agreement could also extend to 2018 in case of convincing results in the first two years. And these days, when there's an Italian coach on the bench, that's not too unlikely to happen.
